2026 Olympics, the director of Gazzetta Barigelli on Milan Cortina

The Olympics that begin are always the most beautiful. These in Milan Cortina arrive after a race, between falls and accelerations, which began after Rome’s candidacy for the Summer Games had been scuttled by the mayor himself, Virginia Raggi. All very Italian. The friendliest fire you can get: a mayor who cuts off his own city. But then the take-off and overwhelming success of Milano Cortina’s candidacy. This is also very Italian. So, here we are, a few years after that June 2019, ready to light the much desired Olympic fire. Much has changed since then, Malagò no longer leads the Coni, for one thing. All stories end and the day an Olympics starts is not the most suitable moment to re-enact a controversy that has accompanied our sport for months. Let’s say that in this new season the Gazzetta has gradually found the position it took in favor of Sport and Health when the reform was born to be more and more correct. At least there is a guide who does not lack skill. I don’t think it makes sense for him to push himself to be a sports organizer, however compared to the passivity of today’s CONI, very busy with ceremonies, cuirassiers and rhetorical speeches, at least he has initiative.

between doubts and certainties

—

Fortunately, Italian sport has talents, technicians, talents and abilities unknown to many of our managers. In this Olympics we don’t know (but who ever knows?) where we will end up in the medal table, we certainly have a number of athletes with great possibilities and ambitions. The Olympics have a fascinating cruelty that makes predictions pure gambling. Who would have ever thought that the Spaniard Francisco Fernandez Ochoa would have taken the gold from the neck of His Majesty Gustavo Thoeni in the Sapporo special slalom in 1972? Nobody. Not even Ochoa himself. A great sporting country is judged, in an Olympics, by the number of athletes it legitimately candidates for a medal and then places among the top five. Italy has over 20. Many, if we consider that at the Turin Games in 2006 there were 11 Italian medals (5 gold and 6 bronze), while in Cortina in 1956 there were only 3 medals, all in bobsleigh (1 gold and 2 silver). Despite winning much less, Italy finished eighth in the medal table in 1956 and ninth in Turin. Which brings us into the middle of the truly great Olympic revolution: the enlargement of the participating and at the same time competing countries. Globalization was invented by sport, long before economics and finance arrived.

goals

—

There will be 92 countries here, approximately three times as many as those who participated in Cortina. They made a film about the four Jamaican bobsleigh athletes from Calgary, but that’s no longer the case. I add thank goodness, because I am convinced that at the Olympics it is more important to include rather than raise the level of technical performance. The situation is different for the World Cup, especially when it comes to the access criteria to the final stages. But Olympism must retain its distinctive feature. Before being a spectacle, the Games must remain a great universal rite. We know that Decubertinism today makes you smile, in top sport at these hyper-sophisticated levels you participate to win and gold medals are an important indicator for a country. But we also know that adversaries exist. Americans call the silver medal the Canadians’ gold. The phrase, in addition to making Canadians nice to us, destroys the very meaning of the challenge, which is compelling when it is between equals. Competing means aiming to win, there’s no doubt. This spirit has always existed, even in De Coubertin’s time. But the contempt towards those who lose gold or don’t reach the podium is instead a recent acquisition. That we fight, as we fight an infectious disease. La Gazzetta was born with the first Athens Olympics. As it happens, in this Olympic year we celebrate an extraordinary birthday: 130 years. In this very long time, the pink spirit of the time has remained intact. As mentioned, many things have changed. We don’t.